Subject: Re: Mime-types
From: WJCarpenter (bill-abisource@carpenter.ORG)
Date: Tue Feb 13 2001 - 17:22:04 CST
paul> There are folks on this list who seem reluctant to use a mime
paul> type *off* the Internet without also registering it with IETF
paul> for use *on* the Internet. (Even though we've been doing so for
paul> almost 2 years now.)
Sure, lots of people do it this way (working with unregistered MIME
types for whatever reason). I've had moss growing on my rooftop for a
couple of years, too. Still not right.
However, it is just an accident of sloppy architecture (not ours!)
that the things you describe are two different things. The stuff you
call "off the Internet" means that the OS or window manager or file
tree viewer or whatever can map a MIME type to an application after a
double click. The stuff you're calling "on the Internet" just means
that someone's email UA can map a MIME type to an application after a
double click. For evolutionary reasons, there are often multiple
places to configure MIME types on a given machine (e.g., I have a
fairly extensive list of MIME types in my emacs configuration).
In an ideal, Utopian, all-connected, distributed-blah-blah-out-the-
ying-yang World, there would be one master list of MIME types (the
one kept up by IANA) and all OSes, applications, and MIME type junkies
would always be current with that list. Of course, in practice, that
can't really happen, and so applications often have to supply MIME
type associations during install to make up for the often considerable
lag time (or swipe MIME type mappings, as variations of browsers and
graphics viewers and audio players are wont to do).
The ad hoc system of using unregistered MIME types works unless there
is a collision. (I'm talking about a collision of different file
types for the same MIME type, not different applications who know how
to interpret the same MIME type.) In a collision, church secretaries
lose. It doesn't Just Work. The more that applications register
their ad hoc MIME types with IANA, the less likely are collisions.
-- bill@carpenter.ORG (WJCarpenter) PGP 0x91865119 38 95 1B 69 C9 C6 3D 25 73 46 32 04 69 D6 ED F3
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